


Nightmares

by h311agay



Category: IT (1990), IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, M/M, Nightmares, PTSD, Past Child Abuse, this work will have no nsfw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-02-21 20:29:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13151457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h311agay/pseuds/h311agay
Summary: Summary:  Every night, each one of them is plagued with memories of the summer they fought Pennywise, although once awake, they cannot remember the contents of their dream. Each one has a different way of coping, a different way of expressing their horrors. Together, they support each other.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This will be a multi-part, multi-point of view fic. Each part will be narrated from the mind of a different loser, and there will be a couple of narratives per loser, meaning this can have well over 14 parts in the end. Althought I don't believe any part will be of significant length. There are two established relationships in this fic: Mike x Eddie and Richie x Stan

Eddie Kaspbrak was going to die. He was trying to scream, and while a few small wheezes had escaped him, nothing substantial could come out, and the clown walked closer. His arm hurt like fire, every movement of his body, trying to scoot across the floor away from the clown, sent sharp nerves of pain shooting through him, making his vision white and sweat coat his forehead. "No," he whimpered as the clown knelt in front of him, clawed hands gripping his face.

The clowns skin was unbearably cold, like holding ice to your skin in the dead of winter, but it only made Eddie break out in a sweat more. And dry, so, so dry, like the air of a sealed tomb, dust floating into your lungs as your walked through. Eddie could feel his lungs constrict and his eyes begin to roll backwards. The clown was getting closer, "no," he wheezed weakly. He could see something in the clown's mouth, a faint light, both entincing and so, so fightening that it almost stopped his heart altogether. He couldn't stop focusing on the light and how it grew brighter, grew colder. And in those lights, he could see.... something. He was trembling in the grip of the clown as he was pulled deeper and deeper and deeper and...

Eddie woke up with a small gasp, which turned into a choked sob, and he brought his hand to his mouth to stiffle it, screwing his eyes shut against the image of the clown. When he opened his eyes again, he looked through the darkness of Richie's room, spotting Richie sprawled out on his bed with no blankets. They had all drawn straws to see who got to sleep on Richie's bed, because there really wasn't any room for more than one person. With a victorious screech, Richie had won and promptly threw himself backwards onto his bed. Now, he was quiet except for a few soft snores. Next to Richie's bed, on the floor, was Stan, and the way his arm laid next to him, and Richie's arm over the edge, Eddie knew they had fallen asleep holding hands. Somewhere else in the room, tucked away in the shadows so Eddie couldn't see them, were Ben, Bill, and between them, Beverly. But they wouldn't be sleeping close to each other, no, but just close enough that if any of them had nightmares, they could be next to the other in a second.

Eddie pulled his knees to his chest and took a deep, shuddering breath, the last image of the clown slipping from his mind, already, he had forgotten what he was dreaming of, but the fear was still palapable. Next to him, Mike stirred and sat up, rubbing sleep from his eyes. The moon was slanted through the blinds just enough to illuminate half of Mike's face and nothing more. "Eddie? You okay?"

"Yeah," he said before breaking down again, hand over his mouth and shaking. Mike slid closer to Eddie and wrapped his arms around him, pressing his lips to the top of Eddie's head. 

"Hey, hey, I got you, Eddie. Nightmare?"

Eddie shook his head and focused on the warmth of Mike's arms, fighting back the cold trying to seep into his bones. 

"Eddie..."

"Y-yes," he finally said, leaning into Mike's hug more. "But I can't remember it, just like always." He let Mike hold him, rocking slightly. "But it was a nightmare."

"You're okay now, Eddie," Mike said soothingly, placing another kiss to Eddie's head. "I'm not going to let anything hurt you. If there's anything in this world that tries to hurt you, it's got me and the rest of those losers to deal with first."

"Sweet, but unfortunately if there's something coming to get me and it has to go through you first, I'm gonna be there, ready to throw hands before it even thinks of touching you. I guess I'd do the same for the other losers as well, which leaves us in a pretty sticky predicament, huh?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right. If any of the other losers are anything like us, it'll just be an endless cycle of all of us moving in front of someone else to defend them. It would be chaos."

A slipper landed dully in front of them and Stan's sleey voice came from across the room. "No it wouldn't be, because I'd shove you all down to run away from whatever it is. Shut the fuck up, it's like four in the morning and some of us are doing this wonderful thing called sleeping."

"Hear hear," came Bill's voice.

"Sorry guys," Eddie whispered into the room as he and Mike laid down, Mike's arms still around Eddie. Eddie buried his face into Mike's chest and sighed heavily. "I wish I could remember the nightmares, maybe it would help with the amount I've been having lately."

"You're probably just dreaming about filling out your taxes," Mike joked and Eddie couldn't help but laugh lightly. 

"That's horrible, please, no, I'll have more nightmares."  
This time when Stan threw the other slipper, it landed on top of Eddie who practically jumped out of his skin. 

"Go to sleep!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight warning at the beginning of this: I took the idea of the woman in the mikveh and the woman in the painting and made them one, feeling that it would create more of a fear factor for Stan. She gets inappropriate toward him, but there is nothing more than a few vulgar gestures and erotic sentences. I have already stated I will not be making this fic sexual in content and I stand by that. The Losers range between the ages of 15-18 in this fic, which is not chronological in order and just snippets that all tie in eventually or are referenced / make references to other parts which may take place at drastically different times.

"I'm gay," Eddie said suddenly in the quiet of the treehouse. The treehouse was in Stan's backyard, he had begged his father the summer when he was 12 to build it, and -- much to his father's disappointment -- it had gone unused for the most part until the Losers had found that hanging out at the Barrens gave them all an inexplicable anxiety. Now they spent most nights in the treehouse whenever the sleepovers were at Stan's.  
Stan looked up at Eddie in slight surprise, but before anyone could speak, Richie stood up and crossed the small space between them and took Eddie's hand, shaking it intensely. "Hi gay, I'm Richie," he said loudly and Eddie's face turned red and he pulled back from Richie.

"Did you just dad joke my coming out?"  
"Sure did!"

"Beep beep, Tozier," Stan said, grabbing Richie by his back belt loop and tugging him hard back into the seat he'd been in a few seconds earlier. He felt bad for Eddie; obviously him coming out had taken a lot of confidence. "Stop being an insensitive prick," he hissed, "and apologise for being an asshole."

Richie turned sheepish and rubbed the back of his head as he sat back down, "Sorry, Eds."

"Don't call me that," Eddie said, voice hard. He took a deep breath and Stan gave him what he hoped was a reassuring look. "I've known for a while but didn't know how to tell you guys and I was... scared..."

Stan frowned some. Eddie was scared to tell them? That thought made Stan's stomach tight; he hated the idea that there was a part of Eddie that was scared of his closest friends, but then Stan realised that there was a part of him that was scared of the others as well. Well, not scared of, more scared of losing. He knew, deep down, that he would rather hide a part of himself than risk losing any of the Losers.

"But it's not something I can hide from you guys anymore. I love you all so much, and I don't want to hide who I am from you. I don't.... don't think it's a phase; I think I've always been gay."

Silence followed the end of Eddie's words until Ben spoke up.

"Thank you for telling us this, Eddie," he said softly. "We'd never reject you, you're our friend."

"You don't ever have to be afraid to tell us anything," Stan contributed. "Unless you're planning on telling us you have a crush on Richie or something, because that would be something to be ashamed of. Richie? Come on, Eddie, please do better than him."

Eddie laughed when Richie gasped in offense. "I'll have you know I am quite the delightful date," he said to Stan. "Tell him, Eds, I would be a wonderful boyfriend."

Stan could see the relief on Eddie's face when he laughed again. "I don't know, Rich. I think you'd be a nightmare of a boyfriend."

Stan laughed and walked over to Eddie, putting an arm around his shoulder and hugging him slightly. "Thank you for trusting us enough to tell us this, Eddie." His heart tightened when Eddie turned to hug Stan full on, Stan could dully hear Richie asking Bill if he thought he would be a good boyfriend.

Other than Eddie's announcement, the rest of the night was uneventful and shortly after one in the morning, they all started to wind down. Stan yawned and stretched his arms. "Think the seven of us can still fit up here? Or should we just split up between here and the room or what?"

Beverly hummed as she looked around, "I think we can all fit if we don't mind sleeping pretty close to each other."

None of them really did, so they all settled down, laying criss cross and shoving themselves into spots so that no one was overlapping. Stan settled down in a spot near the trap door, cushioned between the wall and Richie near his head and his legs next to Eddie's. He flicked off the battery powered lights they had strung up there and everyone did their rounds of goodnights. Finally, their voices died down and the steady breathing of sleep filled the treehouse. Stan drifted off into a content sleep.

 

His socks were wet in his shoes, and he knew, rationally, that shouldn't be the part he was upset with. He was seriously debating telling these guys that he wasn't their friend anymore. He was sick of crawling through the sewers and being chased by crazy magic clowns with an appetite for kids. He was content ignoring the lady in the synagogue; if he just never went back into that area, she wouldn't be a problem. But no, Bill Denbrough had to drag him through shitty water all because he thought this evil clown had Georgie.

He sighed as water splashed up and onto his thigh. "Guys," he turned around and then fell quiet. He was alone. His heart caught in his throat and he felt the sudden need to cry, and that need turned into a reality when he heard the flute music echoing through the tunnels around him. It was the same music he heard when he was at the Mikveh, and it made his blood run cold. He backed up against a wall, eyes trying to search in the darkness for were she was, and then, from the middle of the room, she arose. Stan held the flashlight in front of him, quivering, illuminating her.   
She was a rotting corpse, her face twisted and misproportioned, one cheekbone higher up than the other, causing her left eye to be raised a significant amount higher than her right, an her jaw was twisted, a hole in her right cheek, rotting, rotting, rotting.

Blood spilled from between her legs, and her clothing was missing in places where Stan really wished it would be, exposing her naked body to him. "Stanely," she cooed, as the flute music echoed again, and he shuddered, closing his eyes against her. "Stanely, don't you want me?" She cried, and he could hear the sloshing of the water as she moved closer, shambling, stumbling. He opened his eyes and his heart flew into his throat and his eyes pricked with tears. She had a hand between her bloodied and rotten legs, rubbing herself like the day at the Mikveh. 

"G-go away," he sputtered, backing himself against the wall even more, feeling the coldness seep in, he held the flashlight between him like a shield. "Bl-black bellied whistling-duck, snow goose, fulvous whistling-duck, gar-garganey, f-f-fi-fi-fin-finch," his teeth were chattering and he dropped the flashlight into the water as she stopped right in front of him, cracked and bloodied lips opening to reveal black, rotting teeth and a swollen tongue, pustels covered the inside of her mouth.

"Kiss me Stanely," she said, voice raspy and putrid as it crossed his face and he tried to turn away but her bloodied hands were on his face and he was crying, sobbing.

"No, please," he begged, screwing his eyes shut as she pressed her rotted lips against his. Her mouth opened and he sucked in a breath, wanting to scream, but her mouth kept opening and he couldn't stop trying to breath in. Soon, he was light headed and hyperventilating, gasping like a fish for air as her mouth continued to open, revealing rows upon rows of jagged and rotting teeth. Soon her mouth was around his head and all he could smell was the stench of death and decay. He felt his blood turn to ice and his bones were aching with cold, and within the darkness of her mouth, he saw three white lights, so far away, down her throat, but so close, as if he reached out to them, he could touch them.

The lights were not warm, like everything else around him, they were cold, and surprisingly, they were the coldest of everything. He felt repulsed by the lights, disgusted by them, offended by them. He felt himself floating closer and closer toward the lights, vaguely aware of voices echoing in the sewers around him and the woman, but too cold to care.

Suddenly the woman was reeling away from Stan.

 

Stan sat up suddenly, screaming and pushing his back against the wall of the treehouse, hyperventilating between wheezey screams. He was dully aware of the other Losers scrambling to get up, over to Stan, their voices overlapping and overstimulating his already frantic mind. The lights flickered on and Stan jumped from his skin, smacking his head off the wood of the treehouse. Richie's face came into view and gripped Stan's face gently. Stan was aware of Richie's mouth moving, but there was too much noise, an erratic buzz in Stan's mind. Richie's head whirled around and the buzz went higher for a second as everyone else jumped of flinched slightly, and then the buzz went quiet. A ringing filled Stan's ears and it was like watching Richie move in slow motion; he turned to look at Stan again and Stan saw his mouth move, and after a few seconds, his brain caught up.

"Stan, hey, Stanely, are you okay?" Richie's hands were warm on Stan's face and he let his eyes flutter shut briefly in comfort, only for the blank white eyes of the woman to cross the blackness of his eyelids. He snapped his eyes back open, sputtering and gasping for air across the putrid scent of death lingering in his lungs. He started to cry again and Beverly pushed past Richie to take his place.

"Stan," she said softly, cupping his face and Stan looked at her. "Stan, honey, it's okay. It was just a bad dream; you're with us, we're here."

"We-we-we-we were in th-the sewers, th-ther-there was a l-la-lady--" 

"Shhh," she said calmly, "It was all just a bad dream, Stan. No one's gonna hurt you. We have you." The rest of the Losers made their way over to Stan, hugging him and kissing his head. He cried but by the time he could calm down to talk about his dream, he had mostly forgotten it, but not the cold, not the lights. The Losers all curled up around Stan, holding him as they slept, but there was one source of warmth that was making all the difference for Stan.

Richie's hand in his own.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Beverly's abuse from her father is mentioned and alluded to in this chapter.

Most nights were okay, but it was always when she had to go back home to Aunt's that the nightmares returned. And it was always the night before she left for Derry that she had the nightmares, too. Tonight was her second day back from Derry. They spent the weekend at Bill's house, and in the Barrens, at the movies, and each one of the Losers had been so happy to see her. Mike had been the last one she said goodbye too before she left this time, and she could remember how safe she felt in his arms, how strong and safe Mike was. She had felt the urge to kiss him, but decided he probably got plenty of kisses from Eddie, so saved it for a better time.

Now she lay in bed, tossing and turning; every time she closed her eyes, she was plagued with haunting images, phantom hands touching her and a set of three bright lights that made her chest cold and painful.

Finally, after hours of closing her eyes and hearing his voice, "Bevy, it won't hurt Bevy. It'll feel like you're floating Bevy. You're Daddy's little girl, aren't you, Bevy," she sat up in a cold sweat, shaking and shivering, hugging herself. She glanced at the phone next to her bed and debated calling Bill. Then she turned on her side lamp and saw the time, 2:38 am. Bill would be asleep and she'd just feel bad about waking him up. She knew she could always call Ben, he'd never make her feel bad about calling so late, but his mother would get upset if they got caught. She chewed on her lip, feeling the familiar sting of tears biting at her eyes as she contemplated on who she could or would call.

Finally she picked up the phone and punched in a number as familiar to her as her own heartbeat. "'Lo? " Came a slightly sleepy and groggy voice from the other end of the phone.

"Hey," she said softly. "I didn't wake you up, did I?"

"Bev? Nah, you know I don't usually go to sleep until, like, four. What's up, sweetcheeks?"

"I just... missed your voice," she answered, sniffing some.

Silence followed her answer for a second, and when Richie spoke again, his voice had changed, and his usual joking tone was gone. "Nightmares again? You alright, Bev?"

"I dreamt about... him. And I dreamt about... all the shit he would do to me. I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay. What do you want?"

"I want you to talk to me. Tell me a story or something. Just get my mind off of it, please?"

"Alright, sweetcheeks, gimme a sec to think of something good. Voices, yay or nay?"

"Always a yay, my good sir," she said in a posh British accent.

"Yowza," Richie crooned, "Beverly, my sweet, that wasn't too bad. Not bad at all," he mocked back in an equally posh accent. "In fact, my sweet, I could 'ave mistaked ya for the Queen 'erself, it was that damn fine o' an attempt in and of itself, yessir, yes it was. Might fine attempt, my sweet."

Beverly laughed and felt some of the tension already leaving her body. "You're ridiculous, Richard."

"I know," he said, fondly. "Alright, okay, let's get this thing put in gear; I got, for you, a grand story about love, sacrifice, mighty battles, and saucy, steamy sex scenes."

Beverly oohed and shifted to lay in bed, using the pillow to keep the phone pressed to her ear. "Do tell."

Richie launched into his story, using a plethora of different Voices as he spoke. After a while, his voice became a buzz in Beverly's mind and she drifted back off to sleep. 

It was right before her alarm was going to go off that Beverly was startled awake. She blinked in the grey bleeriness of her room, trying to figure out what woke her so suddenly. The hairs on the back of her neck and arms suddenly stood up, making her skin crawl. She could hear.... something, what she wasn't sure, but it was muffled. Almost like it was crying. She panicked thinking someone or something had gotten into her room, or was it her aunt down the hall? She strained to listen and reached to turn her lamp back on. She noticed her phone was still on the bed and gently picked it up, about to return it to its cradle when she hesitated and brought the phone back up to her ear.  
Instead of the silence or a dial tone, she could hear the faint sound of crying from the other end.

"Richie?" She said softly, curiously, worried.

There was a momentary silence and then she could hear the phone being picked up. "Bev?" He croaked when he spoke, and then he cleared his throat. "Shit, neither of us hung up? It's almost seven, your aunts gonna be livid when she sees the b -- "

"Were you crying?"

"What"

"I woke up and I heard crying and it sounded like it was coming from the phone. Are you alright?"

"Yeah, of course I'm alright. I... I just. It was a nightmare is all. But I'm okay, just scared the fuck outta me I guess."

"Need to talk about it?"

"I..." he sighed. "I don't remember much, like always. Just... I woke up with this overwhelming fear that you were dead," he said the last word softly, as if speaking it would suddenly make it true.

"I'm not dead, Rich."

"I know, it's just... it felt so real and so scary and I wish I could remember the context in which I was dreaming it but, God, like always, it's already faded away."

"I know I was just in last weekend, but maybe I'll convince my aunt to let me come in again this weekend."

"We'd love that, Bev," he said.

"Hey, Richie?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for picking up earlier. I really needed to hear your voice."

"A pleasure, as always, my dear Beverly. It was good to hear yours, too."

"Try not to stay too worked up over the dream, Richie. That's all it was, a dream."

"Yeah. Hey, Bev?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

"I love you, too, Trashmouth. Now hang up and get ready for school."

"Aye, aye, cap'n!" He said before putting the phone on the reciever and ending the call. Beverly smiled to herself as she hung up as well, reaching to silence her alarm just as it started.


End file.
